Burlington, VT

Welcome to day #2 in the Green Mountain State where we sampled Cold Hollow cider and fudge, Grand View Winery's tasting, Cabot cheese, and yes, more beer. For lunch we drove to Burlington's Farmhouse Tap and Grill. Katie's picks were half glasses of Trapp's Vienna Lager; Rock Art's IPA; and her favorite, Sierra Nevada's Snowed In Stout, an imperial oatmeal stout and product of their beer camp. Kelly opted for Trapp's Dunkel; J.W. Lee's Harvest Ale 2009, an English-style barley wine on cask; and Hill Farmstead's Abner - yep, so good he had to try it again.

Our bartender, Justin, tipped us off about a 5pm tapping of the bourbon barrel-aged Russian Imperial Stout cask from Lawson's Finest Liquids, a nanobrewery located in Warren, VT. Naturally - after listening to a bit of the Burlington Jazz Festival and walking along Lake Champlain - we returned for this momentous event and enjoyed the beer garden ambiance despite midday thunderstorms.

For dinner we dropped in on American Flatbread which has its own onsite brewery, Zero Gravity. In honor of the 6th Annual Real Ale Regalia (R.A.Re.) we started with 2 casks: Farnum Hill Dooryard Cider with '07 and '09 harvest vintages from Lebanon, NH for Katie; and Kelly's favorite of the night, Zero Gravity's Old Ale, an English-style strong ale brewed with heather flowers. We then sampled a couple of the house drafts: a rather soapy Wheelhouse (lavender ginger pale ale) and Black Cat Porter for Katie, and Conehead (wheat IPA) and TLA IPA for Kelly. We finished the evening with another half glass apiece: a quality Tribbel (Belgian-style Abbey Ale) for Katie and an unusually carbonated 90 Schilling Scotch Ale, Greg, for Kelly. And shoutout for tonight's flatbread special - chorizo sausage gumbo with red and green peppers, sweet corn, baby spinach and Grafton cheddar - deeelish.

We actually made a final stop at Beverage Warehouse, 3 miles away in Winooski. The store offered a vast selection, especially of Vermont beers, but we left empty-handed (shocker!) due to our thorough work thus far. Stay tuned....